We Were Fine, Thank You
2015
Kwame McDonald, an African pillar in the Saint Paul Rondo com- munity, was working on his autobiography when he transitioned into ancestorhood.
Niam, Ua Koj Tsaug Thank You, Mom
2015
People ask me, “What is Hmong?” Hmong is not just an ethnicity, but a definition of who I am. Hmong is a tradition, a culture, and a belief. Above all, being a daughter in a Hmong family is both a gift and a curse.
Praises
2015
MAY LEE BEAMED when I praised her fennel. Mhonpaj’s Garden is the first organic Hmong Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in the U.S.
A Copy Boy’s Tale
2015
It was a little before seven on the morning of June 1, 1966, when I entered the stately building at 55 East Fourth Street and hurried up the stairs.
Round Earth
2015
MARY STUCKY GOES around the world. The journalist knows the earth is round, and what goes around comes around, so she has been going around and around.
Bratz
2015
A HALE FELLOW with a flair for retail, Todd Romocky grills, listens, hustles, grins. “I’ve been a meat-cutter for the past twenty years.
“Painting is Easy Until You Know How”
2014
RICHARD ABRAHAM paints outside. “Painting is easy until you know how,” Edgar Degas knew, and now Abraham knows. His pictures delight.
Kwame J. C. McDonald: He Faced Death with Courage
2014
Kwame McDonald was a much-loved icon in the community. He was well traveled and well known across the country. My relationship with him—a relationship of associating and working together—lasted over thirty years, right up until the time he died. This is also a story about the manner in which he died, his whole attitude about life and death, and the acceptance of his fate.
All Good Things Are Wild And Free
2014
“IN THE MIDDLE of all the chaos of life, a massage,” smiles Andrea Sullivan. She is a practitioner of Shiatsu Anma, Chinese Abdominal Detox Massage (Chi Nei Tsang), Thai Yoga Massage, and Taoist Medical Qi Gong and meditation, and to watch Andrea giving a massage in the moiling farmers' market is becalming.
Paper Planes
2014
My grandmother had forbidden me from going to their house, so Jaine and Tamara starting sending me airmail. My bedroom window faced their yard, and when my grandmother wasn’t home or it was dark out, they would write me notes on paper airplanes and send them up through my window. I had just learned to read and write so it was all very exciting...
Dylan, Spider John, and the Purple Onion
2014
Dylan, Spider John, and the Purple Onion by Bob Scroggins I got to know Saint Paul and I got to know Bob Dylan because I got to know Bill Danielson.
Dating on the Hill
2014
Fifty-two and newly divorced. Sounds like the symptoms for something fatal. I moved to Cathedral Hill and started going to Nina’s Coffee Café for daily dialysis. Out goes the old, sad blood, in comes the new, highly caffeinated stuff. Some of my friends said, “Why don’t you date?” And other friends said, “Forget about dating. Get com- fortable with being alone.”